Members of the Abergavenny community have expressed their thanks to Monmouthshire County Council’s operations team for quickly cleaning the town centre of graffiti after numerous acts of vandalism appeared recently.

On the morning of Tuesday August 17, graffiti was seen on signs and electrical boxes in several areas of the town including Castle Street and St John’s Square.

The vandalism which likely occurred overnight was condemned by Abergavenny residents, with one resident responding to photos of the graffiti seen online writing on Facebook: "People are on holiday and this is the first thing they see when they leave Castle Street car park, what must they be thinking when they look at this?"

Following the incident, Monmouthshire County Council redeployed staff from highways and tree cutting to ensure the graffiti was removed on Wednesday morning, with work starting at 5am when the streets were quiet.

The hunt is now on for the vandal and council staff have been trawling CCTV in the hope of identifying the culprit.

Cllr Sheila Woodhouse, County Councillor for Grofield ward, who represents the area affected and has been liaising with council officers in recent days over the graffiti removal, said, "I cannot comprehend why anyone would wish to daub our town centre with graffiti, particularly when our main streets are bustling with tourists at the height of the summer.

"I’m so grateful to council officers for the speed with which they were able to remove the graffiti, although it’s a shame that other important work like road maintenance and tree cutting had to be suspended to prioritise dealing with this issue.

"Abergavenny is an attractive and bustling market town and we’re really proud of our community and we’re blessed with so many volunteers who work hard to keep it looking its best. Incidents of this sort are both unusual and out of character, so I would hate for tourists and visitors to our town to get the wrong impression."

Speaking to the Chronicle, Town Mayor Tudor Thomas said: "I was informed about the graffiti on Tuesday morning. I immediately informed Nigel Leaworthy, Operations Manager for Monmouthshire County Council to remove the graffiti as soon as possible as I was very concerned about the impact on the town and particularly at the height of the tourist season.

"MCC came in at 5 am on Wednesday morning to power wash the graffiti off the affected areas. Unfortunately, they could not fully remove the graffiti as the spray paint has stained some of the surfaces.

"I am grateful to MCC for all of their efforts to get the graffiti removed promptly, but am very annoyed with this pointless damage caused to our historic and beautiful town.

"I am hoping that CCTV images both from street cameras and local traders will identify the culprit, and am having ongoing discussion with local Gwent Police Manager PC Elliot Morgan."

Anyone who may have any information regarding the incident is urged to contact Gwent Police or their local PCSOs.